Everybody Breaks A Glass
by forgetyouinsiberia
Summary: A short story written as a request from one of my very best friends. Aria suffers a miscarriage, and her whole world comes undone. Ezria AU (slightly).
1. Everybody Breaks A Glass

**A/N: **This story comes to you from the fact that a friend asked me to write it way back at the end of the summer. I struggled to know where to take it, given that I have many opinions on Ezria and what would happen if Aria ever got pregnant any time in the near future. Given that I'm on the fence with teen pregnancies, there were many different angles I could take with this. I imagine she'll probably talk me into writing a follow-up at some point, but I felt as if the direction this went in suited it well, including where it ends.

_Everybody Breaks A Glass_

_Somewhere perfection lies __–__ but not for you and I __–__ everybody slips sometimes. _

Aria rubbed her eyes as she looked around the room. It was mid-June and the first day of summer, but it was raining hard outside, and the sky was a dark grey. The mood of the weather only served to aid her current attitude.

She watched the water slap against her window and inhaled a long breath, wishing she could stay in bed for the entire day. Hell, she'd rather stay there for the entire summer than get up and go anywhere.

She reached up and wiped the tears away from her eyes and pushed herself up off her bed at the sound of her cell phone buzzing. She snatched it from her nightstand and brought the screen up. She had three new text messages already from her friends, asking if she wanted to meet up.

She closed the messages and threw it back onto her nightstand carelessly before moving off her bed. She walked over to her dresser and picked up the plastic hospital bracelet lying on it, and brushed her fingers over it.

_Her stomach was in knots as she stood with her back to the sink. Tears were rolling down her face, and she was afraid to turn around. _

_She gulped, feeling her phone buzz for what had to be the twentieth time, in her pocket. She took a deep breath and reached into her pocket, pulling it out. The screen lit up with Ezra's picture. _

_She pressed the red button to reject the call, and then, swallowed one more gulp before turning in her spot and looking down at the small stick resting on the sink. Her fingers trembled as she reached down and picked it up. The words in the small readout became clear to her as she looked at it. _

_Pregnant. _

Her back pressed against her closed closet door as she rocked back and forth on the floor. Those knots were in her stomach again, but it wasn't for the same reason. Her shoulders trembled as she rested her head on her knees, trying to pull herself together.

Her bedroom door opened, and Aria looked up. Ella stood there staring down at her for a few moments. She could see the emptiness and the pain in her daughters eyes. She stood there a moment longer before closing the bedroom door and crossing the floor and sitting down next to Aria.

Wordlessly, she slipped an arm around Aria. Aria rested her head on her mother's shoulder as she sat there.

"Aria…"

Aria whimpered as her mother said her name. Her chest hurt from all the tears she'd cried in the past few days.

She had moved out from her family's home when her mother had left. Initially, she wasn't going to, but after finding out she was pregnant and that she'd be living with her father, she knew that she couldn't put herself in that position. Byron was so hostile towards her so much of the time, that she simply couldn't handle the idea of living with him and having to deal with how he treated her.

She sniffled and rested her chin on her arms, which she had draped over her knees.

"I have to go over to the high school for a few hours," Ella said softly. "Will you be okay?"

Aria nodded, continuing to stare at the wall. Ella rubbed her hand up and down Aria's back once more and then kissed the side of Aria's head before pushing up from the spot she was sitting in and walking over to the door. She turned back as she passed through the doorframe, and watched Aria sadly for a few minutes, before walking away.

"_I just want to make sure my homework is good," Aria said as she inhaled a deep breath. She had a stitch in her side that wouldn't let up. She was sure it was from overworking herself in PE, but she desperately wanted to get to lunch. _

_Ella looked up at her after several moments, reading over the paper Aria had presented to her five minutes earlier. "It looks good." Her brow furrowed at the look on Aria's face. "Are you okay?" _

_Aria shrugged, rubbing her hand against her pelvis. "Just sore." _

_She grimaced, and then whimpered as a pain shot down her side. _

_Her bag dropped from her shoulder as another wave of pain shot through her. _

"_Aria?!" Ella walked around her desk, placing hand on Aria's back as she came to stand next to her. Aria doubled over, shaking as a third wave of pain shot through her. She looked down as a wetness started to run down her legs. _

"_No," she whimpered quietly. _

"_Aria?" _

_She looked up at Ella and shook her head as tears ran down her face. "Mom…." _

She still remembered the way her mother had looked at her when she realized what was wrong. How, in the days after that, she never yelled at her, but there was a look in Ella's eyes that told all the thing she wanted to say.

She remembered the cold metal in the hospital, and the dim lighting. She remembered how she'd watched a light continuously flicker while the doctor examined her, and confirmed what she already knew. Her baby was dead.

Her eyes drifted from the stream of dust particles she was watching to the door across the room as the sound of knocking hit her ears. She was split between staying where she was seated and waiting for the person standing behind the door, and going to answer it. Even though it was possible that it was someone else, she was pretty sure it was Ezra.

_There was a knot in her throat as she stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't breathe from how much it hurt from all the tears. _

_She wasn't even sure when her mother had called him, or if he knew why he had been told to come. Even so, as the nurse finished explaining to her that she'd need to rest for the next few days and not over-do it, she couldn't get it out of her head that she should've said something sooner by the tone of his frustrated voice. _

_She moved off the bed numbly and reached for her clothes where they laid on the table nearby. She removed her hospital gown a moment later before slowly pulling on her clothing. The cramping in her abdomen was harsh, but she'd felt worse at other points in her life. She was too numbed by the reality of what was going on to care much as it was. _

_As she reached for her shoes, a twinge of pain raced through the lower half of her body __–__ a feeling she'd now grown used to in the past hour __–__ but she barely winced as she sat down and began to slide her flip-flop on. _

_The door opened as she moved to slip her second shoe on, and she looked down at her legs. They had done a reasonable job at wiping her thighs off after they'd looked her over to make sure everything was as she expected. Still, there was a small droplet of dried blood that clung to her thigh, just below the hem of her skirt. Her skirt that had staining on both the front and the back. She exhaled a shaky sigh as tears welled in her eyes. It made her sick to her stomach that she was glad she'd worn a long t-shirt __–__ one long enough to cover the evidence of what had happened. _

"_Aria?" _

_She couldn't even look up as the first sob broke through her chest. Her fingernails dug into the soft padding of the chair she was seated on as she tried to pull herself together. He probably thought she was nuts. How could she even begin to explain this to him…_

"_Aria, please…" His voice wavered in the way it often did when he saw her crying. She knew it hurt him to see her hurting. She could count on one hand the amount of times she'd cried in front of him because of the fact that she knew it hurt him to see her upset._

_She inhaled a shaky breath as she looked up at him. More tears filled her eyes as her hazel orbs came to stare into his ocean blue depths. She could see the ache and lack of understanding in his eyes as his hand reached up to cup her right cheek. He brushed the tears out from under her eyes, but she could see as the liquid brimmed his eyelids. Ella had told him. _

"_Why didn't you say anything?" _

It was the last thing he said to her. Said, because every word shared between them afterwards was yelled or screamed. The anger wasn't fleeting, and his anger only made her angrier.

It wasn't that his questions weren't valid. She knew that they were. She had kept a vital piece of information from him. But for as many times as she tried to tell him that she had intended to tell him soon, the reality was, was that she hadn't told him _soon enough_. Life had beaten her to the punch, and now she was left with the reality that she had kept something from him until it was too late.

After the arguing came the unending silence. She refused to speak to Ella. It had been all that Ella was able to manage to even get Aria to go to school for her finals so that she wouldn't have to repeat the entire semester in summer school. Aria wasn't sure that it even mattered though. She couldn't remember any of the questions on her finals, or if she'd even gotten a single answer right.

The knocking continued outside the door, and she wondered if he'd go away if she stayed away long enough. The other half of her wondered if he'd find a way to let himself in. Ezra was just as resourceful as she was.

"_Were you __**really**__ ever going to tell me?" He yelled as he glared at her from where he stood, across the room from her in his apartment. _

_Aria's brow furrowed with anger as she shoved up from the couch. "How __**dare **__you insinuate that I would do something like that!" _

"_How am I to know different, Aria!?" He screamed back at her with just as much vigor. "You knew for a __**month**__! You never even said a __**WORD **__to me! For all I could've known, you would have run off from Rosewood in a month or two and I never would've heard from you again!" _

_Aria's fists clenched as she shook with rage. "You know what, Ezra? Fuck you." _

"Aria, please open the door."

She looked over at the doorway from where she was standing, staring out the window down onto the city. That was the first time in days that she'd actually heard him say her name or really _anything_ in a calm tone. Not that it did anything to make her move any closer to the door.

If the event had never happened, she would've been reaching the end of her first trimester in the coming days. She would've given birth around Christmas. Maybe on New Years. All the things she had started to hope for, even if it **had **been silently on her own, would never come to pass.

His fist wrapped on the door once more. She tugged her iPod from her pocket and unwrapped the cord from around the small machine before tucking them in her ears and turning it on. Music began to pulse in her ears, and she turned the dial until she could no longer hear his voice.

"_Have you ever thought about what life would be like with kids?" _

_She was seriously treading water as she stared down at her textbook, too afraid to look up at him. She wasn't even sure whether she was ready to tell him __–__ she hadn't even seen a real doctor yet, and why say anything if there wasn't anything to tell __–__ but she was genuinely curious. _

"_Sure," Ezra replied as he looked up from the paper he was attempting to grade. He hadn't gotten very far yet with all she'd been doing to distract him. "But it always feels like its like five years away."_

_"But if you- we…had kids?" She asked. "Would you want them?"_

_Ezra smiled at her. "Of course, Aria. If and when the time was right." _

"You know, maybe you should just run away if you really want to keep away from me that badly."

Aria jumped as the earbud came away from her ear and his voice hit her eardrums. She wasn't aware that he'd gotten into the house, but then she hadn't really stopped her music to find out, either.

"We can't keep going on like this, Aria," he said as he came to stand beside her, where he could see her face. She kept her line of vision staring out the window.

It was silent for a few moments as he – she assumed – waited for her to say something, or at least acknowledge that she'd heard anything he said.

Ezra sighed softly, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face. She quickly slapped his hand away though, never bothering to look up at him as she did so.

"Are we just done then?" He asked. She could hear the strain in his voice. Still, she said nothing.

"_What was your favourite movie as a kid?" _

_Ezra laughed as he brushed his fingers up and down her arm. "What is it with your sudden fascination with kids? Have you been spending too much time helping out at the daycare?" _

_Aria blushed, shaking her head. "Just answer the question." _

"_I liked the Land Before Time movies," he replied. "I think they were highly underrated." _

_Aria nodded, nuzzling her head against his shoulder. _

"_What about you?" He asked. _

_She thought about it for a moment. "A Bug's Life." _

Cool air came with the setting sun, but it did nothing to keep her out of the shorts that barely covered the top of her thighs and the loose tank top she wore as she stepped inside the bar. She couldn't help but laugh at the fact that she was barely 18, and yet they let her into a place where alcohol was being served.

She walked up to the bar and ordered a shot of tequila without so much as a second thought. One wasn't supposed to mix alcohol and pain killers, but she really didn't give a damn. She felt too invincible with her own pain to believe that she'd die this way. No, if there was a God, he obviously wanted her to suffer for getting knocked up.

"Please, someone, _**anyone**_, fill one of these slots for the open mic," some guy asked from the small stage at the other end of the room. Aria stared at the spot for a few moments before ordering herself a second drink. The bartender refilled her glass. She tossed it back and then slapped a ten dollar bill down onto the wet counter before she walked across the room.

The man standing on the stage smiled at her as she stepped up in front of him. Her fingers tingled slightly as she reached for an acoustic guitar resting against one of the walls. She walked over to a stool settled in front of one of the microphones. She pulled it up into her lap and strummed a few chords before looking around the room.

Her eyes fell upon the stools she and Ezra had sat upon the first day they met. She remembered how they'd laughed as they drank, and how she'd felt her guard fall the more she got to know him. The knot in her chest tightened.

Someone screamed at her to sing, bringing her back to her senses. Her eyes flitted over the crowd once more, and she spotted several dark, curly-haired men in the crowd. Hell, maybe one of them was him.

She began to strum the guitar, moving her head slightly to the beat as she got into the proper rhythm before she began to speak.

"_you know I'm not one to break promises  
__I don't wanna hurt you, but i need to breathe  
__at the end of it all, you're still my best friend  
__but there's something inside that I need to release…"_

People continued to move about the bar as she sang. She watched the door open and close as more people trailed in, only taking the briefest second to look up at her before they moved along to the bar.

"_which way is right, which way is wrong  
__how do I say that I need to move on  
__you know we're headed separate ways  
__  
and it feels like I am just too close to love you  
__there is nothing I can really say  
__I can't lie no more  
__and I can't hide no more,  
__got to be true to myself  
__and it feels like I am just too close to love you  
__so I'll be on my way…"_

There was a time when she wanted everything that this town had to offer, because she wanted it all with him. Sure, she'd leave one day to go away to college. And she had always dreamed of spending a few years in New York after graduating from college, but she always knew she'd return to Rosewood when she was ready to start a family. But she didn't want that anymore. No, she **couldn't **want that anymore.

So instead, she had written him what was supposed to be a letter, to say goodbye. Maybe one day they could be right again, but somehow no matter how many times she scribbled and rewrote, it never came out right.

Maybe he could hear her, maybe he couldn't. She didn't have the wherewithal to give a damn.

The door opened across the room and then slammed shut once more as bells chimed.

"_you've given me more than I can return  
__yet there's oh so much that you deserve  
__nothing to say, nothing to do  
__and I've got nothing to give,  
__I'm asleep without you  
__you know we're headed separate ways_

_and it feels like I am just too close to love you  
__there is nothing I can really say…"_

With her eyes shut, she could recall all the times that he'd made her laugh, and all the times he'd made her cry. All the times that he'd made her so angry that she just wanted to tear her hair out. And she could count on one hand how many times he'd ever left her speechless.

"_and I can't hide no more,  
__got to be true to myself  
__and it feels like I am just too close to love you  
__so I'll be on my way…"_

She wanted to scream and cry for why she couldn't have all the things she desperately wanted to have with him. Why it all had to be stripped so harshly out of her hands just when she was learning to get a grasp on it. She wanted it **so badly.**

"_So I'll be on my way…" _

He had once told her to never question her own self-worth, but she was questioning everything now. Everything she'd ever believed about anything. She wanted to go back. She wanted it **all **back. She just wanted to rewind and go back to the beginning. Maybe make a few different choices. It wasn't **fair**.

"_So I'll be on my way…" _

Tears began to roll down her face, and her fingers were almost too tight against the strings as she struggled to finish out the song. She opened her eyes and looked around the room, her bottom lip planted hard between her teeth until blood began to drip onto her tongue. The smallest drop of it rested on the front of her bottom lip as she sang the last line, staring into two far-too-familiar bright blue eyes.

"_So I'll be on my way…." _


	2. Cactus In The Valley

_Cactus In The Valley_

Rain slapped hard against the window outside the house as Aria's fingers moved lightly over the keys of the piano, occasionally pushing down on one or another and letting the small hammer hit the wire inside the instrument. They were in for quite a storm – at least that's what the news had said. She didn't mind much. Her childish fear of storms had faded over the years as the memories of 'A' grew older.

Seattle had never been her initial plan, or a backup plan for that matter. She'd never intended on finding herself in one of the wettest places in the country, but somehow she'd ended up there.

She supposed it had started with the depressive slump she fell into after the loss of her baby, but even at that, she didn't just pack her bags and drive across the country. No, instead she spent nearly two months in her bed. She didn't eat, she slept for days on end, and got to a point where Ella had feared that she was going to kill herself.

The simple truth of it all though was that Aria didn't know where her will had gone. Everything that had been her driving force had seemingly evaporated.

By the time she'd actually gotten out of bed (which had only been because Ella had practically dragged her from it, with help from both Zack **and** Byron) into a clinic. Aria had never thought she would see the day that she ended up locked up in an 'institution', but it had come anyway.

She was sure she had driven the team taking care of her up a wall by the end of the first week. Granted, she desperately wanted to go home, but her lack of communication made that impossible. So for instead, she spent ten days staring at a wall in a white room. She continued to say nothing, and she refused to move unless absolutely necessary, which meant that she spent most of her time eating finger food in her room.

It had been on the night of that tenth day that she'd finally hit the breaking point of her breakdown, because while she had done her fair share of crying in those first few weeks after the loss of her pregnancy and then Ezra, eventually she'd run out of tears along with everything else. But somewhere inside her, there had apparently been a flickering of something within her, because she'd just plain lost it. She'd woken up out of a dead sleep from a dream she couldn't even remember, screaming and crying. Even when they had threatened to dose her with something to calm her down, she'd insisted on them letting her see her mother.

Though it was obviously against normal policy, they had called Ella at 2 AM on a Tuesday morning, and the woman had driven across town to sit at her daughters bedside while Aria clung to her mother and cried. She cried for the baby she didn't have, and for the fact that she couldn't fix things with Ezra. She cried for the life that would've existed with that baby disappearing, and for the life she wasn't sure how to live anymore. And then, when her body hurt too much to cry anymore, and the sun was coming up, she fell asleep.

She had a myriad of nights like that, and by the time she stepped out of the hospital with her discharge papers and several scripts that needed to be filled, she was faced with the fact that it was now September.

She spent the first four months that should've been the first semester of college in weekly therapy sessions, talking herself in circles about everything under the sun. And then, when she'd grown sick of talking about all her life problems, she had abruptly asked to end her sessions. She attended the spring semester at Hollis taking the few courses that were open to an incoming freshman.

She didn't recall that time with very much to think about, given that her life was rather boring. Emily, Hanna, and Spencer were in three different states each embarking upon their own paths toward what they wanted out of their life. She hadn't heard from Ezra since the previous summer, and though she often wondered where he was and what was going on in his life, she never took the time to establish any form of communication. The wounds were simply too fresh.

It had been all she could do to convince her parents to let her leave the state the following year and attend college in Colorado. She'd never admit it, but she desperately wanted to put as much distance between herself and Rosewood as she could stand without ending up across the ocean. She also still wanted to live somewhere that knew what it was like to have seasons.

Relationships came and went as she studied her way up the ladder at UC-Denver. She did a double major in English literature and in photography, and then left with a bachelors in both. Ella and Byron had begged her to return to Rosewood, and while she did for a short time, she eventually made her way further across the country, finally landing in Seattle. She attended grad school there, barely making her way at times on nothing more than Ramen and the cheapest stirfry she could cook, but she prided herself on being able to be on her own.

Thunder cracked hard outside of the house, and the foundation shook lightly from the reverberation. A high-pitched cry began to emit through the house, starting out as simple mewls, and then growing into wails. Aria pushed to her feet and walked out of the sitting room, over to the short hallway, and down to the first door on the right. She pushed the door open and walked into the room, over to the source of the noise.

Inside the crib, the hazel-eyed baby girl stared up at her with teary eyes as her small arms reached up and her hands grasped, begging to be picked up. Aria smiled sadly at the five month old baby girl and then leaned down and lifted her up out of the crib.

Very quickly the cries still coming from the baby in her arms faded to whimpers as Aria bounced lightly, rocking her back and forth. It wasn't often anymore that she woke up in the middle of the night. She'd even gotten used to sleeping through the storms, lest a rather loud crack of thunder hit too close and woke her up.

She walked over to the rocking chair and sat down, shifting lightly until she was settled just right upon the cushioning that covered the rocker. She shifted the baby onto her left arm and began to hum softly as they rocked. Though she could see that the infant was trying to cling to wakefulness, her eyes quickly fell shut, and her breathing deepened as she fell away to dreams once more.

Aria remembered graduate school in the same harsh light that she did her last two years of high school. It had taken her nearly three years to get over the pain of losing her baby and parting ways with Ezra, and by then she felt it was too late to get involved with anyone in college or back in Rosewood. It hadn't been until she arrived in Seattle that she finally opened herself up to the idea of dating someone. She'd definitely had to kiss a few frogs along the way, but eventually she met a guy that didn't make her feel like the entire world was made up of Noel Kahns.

He'd been nearly ten years her senior, working as a junior partner at a law firm. They'd met by chance at a bar one night, and he'd asked her out to dinner after chatting for two hours.

Naturally, he cancelled on her three times before he actually managed to make the date, and while there were at least half a dozen reasons for her to walk away, she stuck around instead.

Over the eighteen months that followed, they walked in and out of each others lives. It became the kind of relationship that Taylor Swift would regale about in that song about never getting back together. Still, there was something about him that kept pulling her back in, making her want more.

Spencer said it was the dark hair. Hanna said it was his age. Emily said it was because he was just plain gorgeous. Either way, she kept going back to him.

And then life came up and slapped her in the face. As part of her completion of college, she had to student-teach at a local school. It didn't take her long to find one to allow her to do so, but once she managed to choose one, she couldn't help but wish she hadn't. She found it to be a joke that Ezra worked in the very same school, but promised herself that if she could make it through the two months required, that when she graduated, she would leave Seattle and Ezra behind, and never look back.

At least, that's how she felt for the first two weeks.

As with any fight they'd had in the past, he thawed her ice sculpture of a grudge. They started out talking about English tests over coffee, and eventually found themselves sharing lunch while they talked about whatever book he'd gotten her to read that week.

When the year ended, she wasn't entirely sure where she was going to find herself that fall. She put out applications everywhere, and agreed to take a temporary position at the Rosewood Observer for two months while she returned to spend time with her family. She had known that it would be the last time she'd really be able to fly home and spend that much time with her family; she'd have to settle down once and for all with a real job.

She flew into Rosewood in the final week of June, with the plan that her family would finally meet her boyfriend at the end of the summer – God willing that they lasted that long. They'd been known to fight when they spent long periods of time apart in the past, and the fighting often led to saying they were over. A few days would pass, and then one would call the other to make up for the argument and make amends, as with the quote _'I say 'I hate you', we break up, you call me, 'I love you'.' _

By the end of July, the arguing had escalated to the point where Aria refused to take his calls anymore, which she was sure only made him exponentially more angry at her. When they finally stopped, she gave it three days – her typical sentencing of silence for him – and then called him back. For more than a week, he put her through the same petty loop, ignoring her calls, or having his assistant at work redirect her to a different number. When she finally did speak to him, just two days before he was due to be in Rosewood, she gave him a make-or-break ultimatum. She knew there were ultimately better things out there that she could have.

As it was, he arrived in Rosewood two days late – there was always a merger or client or meeting that was more important, wasn't there? – and then only stayed for five days instead of the twelve that he was supposed to. He returned to Seattle without her, promising to meet her at the airport when she arrived.

Rain patted softer against the windows as Aria placed the baby back in the basinet. She stared down at the baby girl, reaching in to brush her fingers against the caramel colored hair on the top of her head. Her heart ached every time she looked at her.

She still remembered the phone call she'd gotten when she arrived in Portland, Oregon. The rain was too harsh in Seattle for flights to land, which meant she was stuck either finding a way to drive into the city, or waiting out the storm. He promised he'd find a way to get to her, no matter what it took.

Two days later, she was still waiting on him to arrive, though the rain had passed after the first twenty-four hours.

A part of her couldn't help but wonder if he'd lied to her. She'd been told plenty of rumours about him in all the time they'd been dating – how he was known to cheat on his girlfriends with female associates, or how he would pick girls up at the bar after closing a situation and go home with them. He never put himself in the position of having to take them back to his place, she was told. Hell, she was told a lot of things, but she'd never seen them come to pass.

When she wasn't able to get a hold of him as the 48 hour mark ticked past, she put in a call to Ezra. He made the trip down to Oregon to pick her up, and then drove her back home. Aria continuously tried to get in touch with _him_, but to no avail.

By the time she was back home in Seattle, she was losing every ounce of respect she had left for the man she had called her boyfriend. It had barely been two weeks since he'd agreed that they were in it for the long haul, and now he was nowhere to be found. Filled with rage and frustration, she stormed his firm and demanded answers from his assistant, who had all but looked at her like she was nuts.

She still remembered how they looked at her and asked the same questions. _'You don't know?' 'You haven't heard?' 'Hasn't his brother called you?' _

Her answer was always no. She didn't know what they were talking about. She'd never met his brother. And there, where the wave had been rolling continuously backwards, building and building until it couldn't pull back any farther, it came crashing down upon her. He was dead.

Three nights previous, he'd called upon his driver to make the trip with him to Portland. They had left the building together after Aria had called him to alert him that she'd landed. He hadn't even made it out of the city. Instead, he was the only death in a two car collision, caused by a drunk driver.

The knife that had twisted in her chest for weeks after that was one that took eight months to fall away. Eight months, because just days after his funeral, she found out she was pregnant.

Aria made her way out of the room, stopping at the door and turning, just to be sure that the baby monitor was on, before she pulled the door shut and made her way down the hall to her bedroom.

She walked inside and walked over to the bed, pulling the blankets back before she slipped under them.

It had taken her nearly eight years to find herself back in the same bed as Ezra.

He had been the hand she needed to hold when the doctor told her she was pregnant. The shoulder she cried on when she was faced with the realization that her baby wouldn't have a father. The cheerleader she needed when, with each day, week, and month that passed, she didn't lose the baby. Everything she needed him to be, he was, just as he always had been.

They had discussed whether or not she wanted him to adopt the baby when she was born, but she ultimately decided against it. After she'd connected with her daughter's paternal family, she just couldn't see doing that to them. She was their only connection left to him. And while she firmly believed she and Ezra would go on to have the family that they had always been meant to, Charlie was solely hers.

She was born on a rainy morning in the middle of April, and came out screaming into a room that only included Aria, Ella, and the doctor and nurse dispatched for her birth. She left everyone else to their own devices, waiting in the waiting room for further news. Her daughter's birth was something that was more personal than anything she'd ever felt. The only thing more personal than the loss of the baby she would never have, and the only constant through all of that, is how her mother had stuck with her through it all.

Ezra groaned beside her as he shifted and rolled over, slipping an arm across her torso as he did so. Aria nuzzled her chin against his chest as she breathed in his scent. Even though Charlie looked like her father, she always seemed to _smell_ like Ezra.

Charles Daniel Wakefield left Aria's world on a rainy August evening sometime after nine PM.

Charlotte Danielle Wakefield came into it on a rainy April morning at 3:13 AM, on the third floor, in the wing that they liked to call the B wing.

"Love you," Ezra murmured softly, his voice raw from sleep. She wasn't sure if he was actually saying it too her, or just in his sleep. It didn't matter. She knew he meant it anyway.


End file.
